Forum for innovation management
Onsdagen den 11 november 2009, riksdagen
Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is a great pleasure for me to be here today speaking about the importance of innovation. We are experiencing the worst global economic crisis since the 1930s, an influenza pandemic is spreading throughout the world and the threat to the climate is becoming more and more apparent.
We can also see that emerging economies in Asia and Latin America are investing heavily in research and development. In 2025, nearly two thirds of the world population will live in Asia while the European Union will account for less than 7%. In terms of world production, the USA-EU-Japan triad will no longer dominate the world. The emerging and developing countries which accounted for 20% of the world's wealth in 2005 will account for 34% of it in 2025. It is possible that the USA and Europe could also lose their scientific and technological supremacy for the benefit of Asia in the global innovation networks. India and China could account for approximately 20% of the world's Research and Development, which is more than the double their current share.
The EU’s GDP per capita remains at 70 % of the US level and the Research and Development intensity hovering below 2% of EU’s combined GDP, compared to close to 3 percent for the US.
In many areas crucial to Sweden’s and Europe’s future welfare, such as energy saving technologies, sustainable development, climate sustainability, and health it is the global access to such knowledge, the development of joint global standards and the rapid world-wide diffusion of such new technologies that are at stake. The fundamental question is whether we are up for the challenge?
The Swedish government takes the challenge that we faces very seriously. Sweden’s Europe’s future wealth depends on how the challenge can be met.
In times like these it is easy to focus on short-term solutions, but as Minister for Research I would like to stress the importance of a long-term approach. When times are tough it is extra important to invest in new knowledge – education and research. Today’s investments in research create tomorrow’s welfare.
But strengthening research is not sufficient to give the knowledge economy the boost it needs. It is also crucial that our investments in knowledge leads to sustainable growth, into innovations. The Swedish EU-presidency has therefore chosen to give priority to issues concerning the knowledge triangle – that is, the interaction between education, research and innovation.
The knowledge triangle is vital to Europe’s future success. To discuss and handle knowledge policy IS to shape the future. It’s not something we SHOULD succeed in, it is something we MUST succeed in.
The aim of strengthening the knowledge triangle is to interlink three policy fields – education, research and innovation. Each of these three parts of the triangle is important. We need to strengthen the links between the different parts, but we also need to strengthen each part in itself.
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To start in the middle, with research I, as the Minister for research, naturally have to begin by requesting more money. Sweden calls for a shift in the EU-budget, from agricultural subsidies to research investments. That would give a much higher added
value to the union. But we also need each member state to invest more, because the pluralism of the research funding on the European continent is one of our big advantages.
All research funding have to be based on quality assessments and that is one our big challenges. How can we improve our systems for measuring quality? Some, including me, would say that new knowledge is important just for the sake of it. Others, also including me, claim that it’s important that research can be commercialized and generate growth. I cannot chose one of those positions, we need both.
However, I can understand that in times like ours, when there’s been quite a bit of economic turmoil, the public debate tends to focus on the possibility of research creating growth. That brings us to the next part of the triangle – innovation.
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We should be honest. Looking at how much we do invest in research, Europe is not getting enough out of it.
Some call the problem of turning scientific breakthroughs into profit “the valley of death”. In Sweden we are less drastic and call it “the research paradox”. I’m fine with the fact that not all research can be commercialized. But I’m not fine with great ideas, like a groundbreaking new technique to combat global warming being left in a desk drawer just because our system for innovations is not good enough.
There is a lot we, who are involved in research policy, can do – I’ll come back to that shortly.
But we cannot bridge the valley or solve the paradox by ourselves. We need help from other policy areas and from the private sector. Taxation and industrial policies are two important pieces of the innovation puzzle. A good entrepreneurial climate is another must.
But, for today, let us focus on what we can do in my political area.
We must make it easier to have multiple careers. It must be possible to travel back and forth between a career in the academy and one in the private sector. I believe that many researchers are hesitant to take a leap of fate and leave the safety of the university for the more insecure business world. I think the common thought is that
an academic career will benefit more from publishing the research result, in comparison to commercializing them.
It’s my experience that brilliant researchers are not always great businessmen, although some are. In Sweden we have the extraordinary example of Alfred Nobel who both invented the dynamite and commercialized it building the wealth that is today used to fund the Nobel Prize. But renaissance people like Alfred Nobel don’t come around that often. Instead I believe in match making. Universities should be better at helping their employees find a venture capitalist to help fund the development of their own inventions.
Universities could and should do more to help their employees commercialize their inventions.
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The third part of the triangle is education. As the Minister for higher education, I’d like to focus on the universities. I guess I’ll run the risk of sounding like a broken record but I believe that the higher education’s main needs are money and higher quality.
But universities also need to be more modern. Like everything and everyone else universities have to adapt and adjust to the world around them. And what could have higher potential to be more modern than an institution which’s main purpose is to create new knowledge?
We live in the era of globalization and I would say that the pressure on the universities has never been greater. Every university wants to have the best of the best – students, teachers and researchers. Decades ago the top universities in Sweden had to compete with each other for the best students, or the top researchers. Today, they have to battle Harvard, Oxford and the University of Kyoto as well. If that isn’t pressure to modernize and improve – I don’t know what is.
So what characterizes a modern university? I would say that two things come to my mind.
Openness. A modern university must be open. To new ideas, to new methods and to new ways of cooperating. In today’s world there are no boundaries. For example – a student doesn’t have to take all courses needed for a masters degree in one university, in one country our even on one continent.
Autonomy. An open, modern university must be free to explore all the new opportunities. In many ways the old structures are holding universities back. I can certainly say that that’s the case in Sweden. We have laws and rules telling the universities what they can and, mostly, cannot do. They have to ask the government for permission to do anything out of the ordinary. Obviously that is not an efficient system. We are preparing a reform to make the universities more free, as I know many other countries have done, or are planning on doing. It’s not easy finding new ways for the universities to exist. I think we can learn a lot from other countries and exchange experiences.
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Let me end by saying a few words on a more general note. The new global landscape contains obstacles, but most of all opportunities for those who have the determination to seize them. Investments in knowledge – education, research and innovation– is absolutely vital to build a Europe that will be able to combat our current crises – and challenges to come.
Thank you for your attention.